Entries by Gary W. Small, M.D.

Nearly 80 million baby boomers are starting to reach the age when they begin noticing and joking about memory challenges. For those with a family history of Alzheimer's disease, their middle-aged pauses are no joke but a cause for concern that they too may succumb to this disease that afflicts...

Age is the single greatest risk factor for getting Alzheimer's disease, which has become a worldwide epidemic. More than 5 million Americans are already afflicted, and every 70 seconds another is diagnosed. As 80 million baby boomers begin reaching age 65, concerns about normal age-related memory slips are...

I have always been a lightweight when it comes to drinking. It only takes one or two glasses of wine to get me tipsy. One of my college roommates speculated that I might be afflicted with some type of anti-social disease that made me allergic to alcohol. It turns out...

I love the way I feel after a good night's sleep. My body is rested; my mind feels clear and alert; and I am happy to just linger in bed and relax. Of course, this delightful state is eventually interrupted by an alarm going off or the dog barking for...

My wife's 103-year-old grandmother lived in a third floor walk-up apartment in New York City. Every day she walked up and down those stairs several times to go shopping, to the post office, the dry cleaner's and do other little errands. At 103, she was as sharp as a tack....

Michael Jackson at 50 looked quite different from the way he appeared in his teens and 20s. Most of us expect the usual age-related changes that alter our bodies over the years, but for Mr. Jackson, there was another explanation. He underwent a series of elective surgeries in order to...

Her psychiatrist knows her inner thoughts and feelings better than anyone. She can say anything to him and he doesn't judge her, but only seems to understand her better. She feels safe and comforted whenever she sees him. He knows just when to hand her a tissue when she's about...

I felt so close to Larry and admired him so much, that I had failed to even consider dementia as a possibility. I didn't want either of us to go through that pain. There are treatments, even cures, for depression, paranoia and obsessive-compulsive disorder. But we only had symptomatic treatments...

I was about to board my flight back to Los Angeles and turn off my cell phone -- I was being thrifty with the battery since I had forgotten where I left my travel charger -- when a journalist called urgently asking for a comment on Paul McCartney's recent admission...